The High Court has awarded Allied Irish Banks plc judgment for €1,648,147.97 against Deirdre Yates under a guarantee for borrowing by Celtic Bookmakers Ltd, after finding she had no arguable defence to the claim.
Mr Justice Noonan delivered the judgment on 5 February 2016, on the bank’s motion for summary judgment. The claim was brought under a guarantee dated 13 April 2010. The judge applied the summary judgment test and concluded that Yates had not shown a fair or reasonable probability of a real or bona fide defence.
Celtic obtained bank facilities in 2010, including a €5.169 million loan account. AIB’s February 2010 sanction letter required a €6.769 million guarantee from Yates, supported by a mortgage over a house on 1.3 acres at Blackstoops, Enniscorthy, County Wexford. The guarantee identified Celtic as borrower and set its limit at €6.769 million. The judgment records that Yates signed it, with her signature witnessed by a bank official. AIB’s letter and the guarantee advised her to obtain independent legal advice.
The bank’s evidence put Celtic’s loan account balance at €4,524,831.97 on 18 January 2011. It deducted €2,876,684 in receivership receipts recorded up to 23 August 2013, leaving the sum claimed. The judge noted that the calculation related to the loan account alone, rather than all the company’s facilities.
Yates argued that AIB should first realise other security, that she could rely on non est factum, and that the bank had not adequately explained the amount claimed. The judge rejected each ground at the summary judgment stage. He found that the guarantee excluded the marshalling argument and that the circumstances did not bring the case within the Supreme Court’s decision in Whelan v AIB.
On non est factum, the judge said Yates’s evidence did not identify what she believed she was signing instead of a guarantee. Any apparent misunderstanding concerned the document’s legal effect, and the evidence did not establish a fundamental difference in its character or that she had taken reasonable precautions to find out what it was.
The judge also rejected the challenge to the calculation and the suggestion of double recovery. He said AIB could pursue more than one route for the debt but could not recover the same sum twice. The court’s order was judgment for €1,648,147.97. The judgment does not state a separate order for costs.